10 Insightful Ideas On Starting A New Business For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Written on November 14, 2007 by Tezza

Wednesday’s weekly guide to Best Of The Web from 4EvaYoung.com

This is one very entertaining and informative presentation by Guy Kawasaki. I’ve heard off Guy before but it was the first time I’ve listened to him speak. He is a natural speaker on stage. Guy presented this speech at TiECon, May 13, 2006 on The Art of the Star. This 10 point presentation gives very useful information for any aspiring Entrepreneur and those already in business.

Here are some of the points that I took out of Guy’s speech. To watch the whole speech in it’s entirety I have included the video link at the bottom of this post.

1. Make Meaning

- You can do this by increasing the quality of life
- You could right a wrong you perceive in the world
- Prevent the end of something good

The companies that are successful are companies that create meaning. If you create meaning you will make money. If you start off to just make money you attract the wrong kind of employees.

2. Make a mantra for the world

Don’t get bogged down with useless mission statements designed by MBA’s. Make a mantra simple and memorable. You want your employees and stakeholders excited about your company.

3. Get going

Many entrepreneurs have a difficult time to get going. They want to know that they have a market, do focus groups etc

- Be different. Do things better. Think different.
- Don’t be afraid to polarize people. Don’t try to create a perfect product targeted for everyone because you will make no one happy. Know which market you want to target and build for them
- Find a few soul mates. Bill Gates had Steve Balmer. You need someone to balance you off.

4. Define a business model

-Be specific. Who is my customer. How do i get my money out of her purpose.
-Keep it simple. Do not innovate on business model. Innovate on other areas. It’s simple.
-Ask women when you come up with a business model for their ideas.
-Weave a MAT (Milestones, assumptions and tasks). Come up with milestones for your business, write down the assumptions for your company eg. how many sales calls do i need to make. Write up tasks to either help you complete a milestone or test an assumption

5. Niche Thyself

Be someone to provide high value and a unique enough product or service that their is minimal competitors.

6. Follow the 10/20/30 rule

This is a rule for whenever you need to make a presentation or meeting with a venture capitalists. You should have 10 slides in your powerpoint presentation not 50. Those 10 slides you should give in 20 minutes. The smallest font you should use is 30 points.

7. Hire infected people

-Are they infected by the love of the product. Don’t just look for people with a good education background and work experience.
-Hire better than yourself. “A” players should hire “A+” players.
-Apply the shopping center test.

8. Lower the barriers to adoption

Flatten the learning curve. Don’t make it hard for people.

Don’t ask people to do something that you yourself wont do. Don’t make someone fill out a whole bunch of questions just to get a free password on your site.

9. Embrace the evangelists to your product

10. Seed the clouds

Let a hundred flowers blossom.

Enable test drives. Let people take your product home.

Find the true influencer’s.

11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down

They will tell you all the reasons why it cant work or wont work. Why you cant succeed. Don’t believe them.

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